Are you an AmeriCAN or an AmeriCAN'T?

Back in 2006, Bill Whittle wrote a brilliant piece entitled “Seeing the Unseen” in which he dismantled many of the typical Liberal mantras, most of which could be found proudly and ignorantly plastered on the back of their car bumpers. This post by Mr. Whittle was the first one I read by him and it made me an instant fan of his work. Read on and you will soon see why:

Recent reports of the advanced state of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, and the confirmed presence of 700+ chemical shells leaves this chestnut in some disarray. However, even if you take that away, the entire concept is a cowardly and petty retreat spoken by people who know better.

Here is a pretty decent encapsulation of what both Republicans and Democrats had to say about Saddam and WMD’s. You will find Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s rhetoric somewhat less adamant and warlike than that of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Al Gore, Robert Byrd, Nancy Pelosi, Hans Blix, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger and all the rest. These were elected representatives who studied the same intelligence that the White House did, and came to the same conclusion.

Unfortunately for them, Al Gore in his unbridled enthusiasm went and invented the Internet, and so now there is a record of what they said and when, available to the great unwashed masses. It shows a group of people deeply concerned about what was a pressing threat to this country. And now, almost all of them claim they were lied to? Are they capable of reading intelligence reports themselves, or did Bush have to read it to them aloud, with them seated at his knee in My Pet Goat fashion, skipping the parts he didn’t think would make a good sell? Some people say that they did not get the same intelligence that Bush got. To the degree that is or isn’t true, the record shows that it was the more outlandish claims that were not included, so that the intelligence that led them to come out against Saddam and in favor of military action was less provocative than the intelligence the President and Secretaries of State and Defense saw.

The invasion of Iraq was meant to prevent Saddam Hussein from using Weapons of Mass Destruction. This mission was accomplished by the time President Bush stood on that carrier deck. The huge majority of casualties we have incurred in the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq have come about by our willingness to rebuild and secure a country that we owed nothing to whatsoever.

Here is the legacy of the Bush Lied, People Died crowd: in the future, we know that no good deeds — building of hundreds of schools and hospitals — will go reported. We know that no foul deeds — a handful of idiots humiliating prisoners over the course of a few days — will ever be put into perspective.

So why do it? Why build schools and hospitals, and protect polling places, and suffer the casualties we have suffered to get a country on it’s feet, if all we hear and see is the negative and the undeniable failures? The next time we have to go and kick the hell out of some band of rabid crazies, why not just kick the hell out of them and then go home? Because there will be a next time, and I suspect sooner rather than later. By refusing to report the myriad successes and kindnesses, our compassionate and caring moral betters in the media have only shown there is very little reason to do them in the first place, except for the satisfaction of our own morality and conscience — which I hope will be enough.

Let me leave you with something very, very important. It is the greatest logical fallacy of them all, and if you hope to gain any perspective in the world today, I believe you have to understand what I am about to say in your bones.

You cannot just count the hits and not record the misses.

May I show you something to make this point?

What you are about to see is a graphical representation of commercial air flights over the US on any given day. You will see dawn on the east coast as more and more flights get airborne, and watch morning spread to the west as the country comes alive. It is one of the most beautiful marriages of science and art I have ever seen. It is here. Go take a peek then come back. I’ll still be here.

Every dot in that animation is a jetliner, carrying hundreds of people. This is the first time I have ever actually seen the miracle that takes place in our skies every single day.

Why am I showing you this? Well, because every single dot in that ocean of sparks is a successful flight. Tens of thousands of flights land in this country every single day and no one says a word about it. And yet, when there is an accident — and you would have to watch every dot in that animation almost 2000 times to get back to the last fatal accident by a large-scale carrier — that sticks in our minds, obviously, and that image of burning wreckage is what stays with some people on their entire flight. They do not think about all the millions of flights that land safely. Nor do they think about the thousands of car accidents that occur with so much greater frequency.

Why?

Because we are recording only the hits — the crashes — and not recording the misses, namely, the safe landings. If you had to drive to work every day listening to radio announcements of every successful landing, you would be listening to a cacophony of flight numbers twenty-four hours a day. After a few years of this you might be able to get a glimmer of perspective on the safety of modern air travel.

Likewise in Iraq. Hand out candies to children on a daily basis, and the smiles and gratitude are nowhere to be seen on US television. But if some death-loving lunatic decides to scatter body parts to the four winds you can bet that will get the News media’s attention. Complete a new hospital, or a water treatment plant, or bring electricity or television stations to neighborhoods that never had them before? Yawn.

On the day of the last Iraqi elections — the day they ratified the constitution the press said these people would never ratify — CNN’s lead story was about nasty rain showers sweeping the southeast. About these historic elections there was heard not a peep.

Iraqi TV has a version of American Idol. Did you know that? They produce hundreds of hours of comedies, game shows — all that stuff. Sounds a little arcane for Iraq, you say? A little normal? That’s because people who believe they are smarter than you have decided that such stories of hope and success do not fit the narrative needed to teach you poor ignorant slobs the lesson that you are supposed to be learning, and that lesson is that George Bush is a murderer while Saddam was a statesman, and that Iraq is a failure fueled by the blood of poor, innocent, child-like soldiers too stupid to realize that they are dying to line the pockets of Halliburton.

My critical thinking skills, such as they are, tell me that you might be able to corral an army and send it over there under such false pretenses. What I cannot explain is why so many people in the military re-up, two or three or four times, to go back and fight for this oil-soaked lie that people here maintain is the truth, despite what the people who have actually been over there have to say about it.

This is an all-volunteer military. Why would so many of these people keep returning to such danger, and put themselves and their families at such terrible risk, for a lie or a mistake?

If Iraq is a con game and an oil steal and an unwinnable quagmire then this just doesn’t make any sense. But back they go! That’s the data. The people most optimistic about Iraq — and those with the most to lose — are generally the same people. They are the men and women who are over there now because they believe they are doing something honorable and good. No one is forcing them to reenlist. Hear that John? I’d hire any one of these people in a heartbeat. They are brighter than the general population, and they are so far beyond their Ivory Tower critics in terms of discipline, courage, ingenuity, integrity and honor that it makes one’s head spin.

Are we beating these terrorist scumbags and child-targeting insurgent bastards? Are we winning?

Well, let’s see if we want to switch sides with them. Let’s imagine the war where the insurgents have our cards and we hold theirs.

Imagine the US completely occupied by Al Qaeda forces, subject to Sharia law. We are able to take pot shots at a few of them, and we manage to murder a few dozen of our own people every day in an attempt to stop the population from collaborating with the hated invader. But more and more Americans seem to be turning to Sharia and want to get on with their lives. We find sixty percent of the population wants Al-Qaeda to leave, but hatred for the US insurgent forces — the Wolverines — is at about 98%. The people hate the occupiers, but they despise the Wolverines.

Now imagine that a year into the occupation of America, George Bush’s two daughters were killed in a firefight with the enemy, which had surrounded the college sorority house where they were hiding. A year after that, President Bush was pulled out of a septic tank in Crawford by the Fedayeen, then put on trial and sentenced to hang, which he did on national television to widespread cheering. Condi Rice, captured in an early morning raid several years ago, has been a great source of useful information to target the American resistance, and Donald Rumsfeld was killed by a suicide bomber this last summer.

Everywhere you turn — in every street and every city in America — Al Qaeda forces run security patrols, training Americans to do this for themselves. The only way to stop this is by killing our own people, which further alienates us from a populace that already despises us.

Does that feel like winning to you? Me neither. Welcome to the insurgency.

Back in 2006, Bill Whittle wrote a brilliant piece entitled “Seeing the Unseen” in which he dismantled many of the typical Liberal mantras, most of which could be found proudly and ignorantly plastered on the back of their car bumpers. This post by Mr. Whittle was the first one I read by him and it made me an instant fan of his work. Read on and you will soon see why:

Sounds reasonable to me. How much of a chance? Three years? Five? Ten years? See, now you’re playing me for an idiot.

We gave Saddam Hussein thirteen years before the Great Rush to War. He could have stopped the whole thing by coming clean, up until the instant the first tanks crossed the border. But he did not. We know what ‘coming clean’ to weapons inspectors looks like in the real world, because a few days after they pulled Saddam from his hidey-hole, Libya’s Colonel Khadafi turned over all the details of his nascent nuclear weapons program: blueprints, locations, stockpiles — the whole enchilada. We gave peace an even longer chance with the good Colonel, and we got bupkis: bupkis, and Pan Am 103 exploding over Lockerbie. That was our peace dividend. I can not see how anyone can deny that the idea of a little old-fashioned war and its consequence on dictators may have focused Mr. Khadafi’s mind somewhat.

War is not the Answer

Okay. I’m listening. What is the answer?

No, you don’t get to say I don’t know but I know it’s not war! If you admit you don’t know what the answer is, then it logically follows that you are in no position to say what it is not.

With regards to Iraq, Saddam started a suicidal war with Iran, and then with the United States. He then proceeded to break every single element of his cease-fire agreement — shooting at allied airplanes trying to belatedly enforce no-fly zones to prevent him from massacring even more of his own people, continuing with a well-documented and undeniable effort to obtain nuclear weapons, and all the rest.

So what is the answer, Mr. Moral Superiority? Sanctions? We sanctioned him for 13 years. He bribed the UN and stole billions of dollars for new palaces and industrial shredders for the opposition. Should we just leave him alone? The New York Times reported a few days ago that Saddam was a year or two away from a nuclear weapon. Do you trust the man’s judgment after Iran and Kuwait? I don’t.

War is an ugly, messy, filthy business, and the greatest slander I have seen in these last three years is the idea that somehow the pro-war crowd thinks war is a great thing. War is an awful thing. And yet I am pro war in this case. How can that be?

This is probably the most useful thing I’ll write in this essay:

Doves think the choice is between fighting or not fighting. Hawks think the choice is between fighting now or fighting later.

If you understand this, you understand everything that follows. You don’t need to think the other side is insane, or evil. Both hawks and doves are convinced they are doing the right thing. But it seems to me there is a choice between peace at any price and a peace worth having.

We cannot undo the invasion and compare that timeline to the one we have. The only data we can use to compare these philosophies is embedded in the pages of history. What does history show?

I cannot think of a single example where appeasement — giving in to an aggressive adversary in the hope that it will convince them to become peaceful themselves — has provided any lasting peace or security. I can say in complete honesty that I look forward to hearing of any historical example that shows it does.

What I do see are barbarian forces closing in and sacking Rome because the Romans no longer had the will to defend themselves. Payments of tribute to the barbarian hordes only funded the creation of larger and better-armed hordes. The depredations of Viking Raiders throughout Northern Europe produced much in the way of ransom payments. The more ransom that was paid, the more aggressive and warlike the Vikings became. Why? Because it was working, that’s why. And why not? Bluster costs nothing. If you can scare a person into giving you his hard-earned wealth, and suffer no loss in return, well then you my friend have hit the Vandal Jackpot. On the other hand, if you are, say, the Barbary Pirates, raiding and looting and having a grand time of it all, and across the world sits a Jefferson — you know, Mr. Liberty and Restraint — who has decided he has had enough and sends out an actual Navy to track these bastards down and sink them all — well, suddenly raiding and piracy is not such a lucrative occupation. So, contrary to doomsayers throughout history, the destruction of the Barbary Pirates did not result in the recruitment of more Pirates. The destruction of the Barbary Pirates resulted in the destruction of the Barbary Pirates.

And it is just so with terrorism. When the results of terrorism do the terrorist more harm than good, terrorism will go away. We need to harm these terrorists, not reward them, if we ever expect to see the end of them.

There are endless examples of this sort of thing. It makes me wish I had a mind on the level of Victor Davis Hansen so I could name every single one of them for you. But one example rings very loud to my ears.

After World War II, the allies captured the records of the German High Command. I was stunned to discover that the Wehrmacht’s generals were so appalled at Hitler’s decision to test the resolve of the Western Powers (by marching into the demilitarized Rhineland) that they were prepared to remove or even assassinate him should there have been any resistance to the move. They were terrified of finding themselves in another war. Hitler, on the other hand, couched the violation in the same reasonable-sounding terms that Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi would have undoubtedly approved of, and in he went.

Thus began the most horrible and tragic appeasement in the history of the world.

According to the Germans’ own records, a platoon of French soldiers, stationed on that bridge and unwilling to retreat (there’s your problem right there) would have caused the overthrow of Adolph Hitler, and the abandonment of his expansionist policies. Why? Because it wouldn’t have paid, that’s why. As it happened, intimidating the West paid handsomely: The Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia. It was only when the West finally realized the fruits of appeasement that Hitler was stopped. If it had happened much sooner it would have been much easier. If it had happened at the beginning it would have been painless.

Even though I did not live through it, I don’t forget lessons like this. Not something this clear. Likewise, I do not forget things that I did live through: that bullies who take your lunch money will beat you up more if you give them money and less if you fight back. There’s a logic behind this — predators have to survive every encounter with their prey, so why take chances on anything other than the sick and the weak — and there is an emotional component, too: and that is respect.

Thugs and bullies cannot produce anything of value. They have to take it from those who can. Giving it to them in the hope they will go away does not engender love or respect in them — just the opposite. It creates more contempt and confidence. If it didn’t — if they behaved like sensible people — they wouldn’t be thugs and bullies in the first place.

This projection of rationality onto irrational people is the linchpin of the liberal failure to understand human nature. To those who tend to believe every claim on innocence from career criminals, I recommend COPS therapy. Watch any single episode of COPS and you will see people earnestly swear — I swear to God, sir! — that they do not possess the drugs they are holding in their hands. What’s that crack rock on your car seat? That’s not my crack rock, sir! It’s in your car. This isn’t my car! I swear to God sir! There are five crack rocks in your pocket. These aren’t my pants, sir! A friend gave me these pants just before I left the house! I swear to God, sir!

I have heard it reliably reported that once a police officer confronted a heroin addict who had passed out with a needle in his arm. When confronted with this, he supposedly said, that’s not my arm!

Telling reasonable people what they want to hear is a survival skill for criminals. They don’t get very far without knowing how to play people. In Narcotics Anonymous they have a spot-on term for this kind of behavior. They call it ‘dope-fiending’. How did you get that car? I dope-fiended my mom into letting me drive it. When a spokesman for Hamas or Al Qaeda tells you that they are only fighting America or the Jews because they are worried about Global Warming, you are being dope-fiended.

How much more control do we have over terrorists if they are people with a series of reasonable demands, rather than murdering misogynists who want women enslaved and Jews and homosexuals killed on sight? See, if it’s our fault, all we have to do is change and they will go away. But if it’s who we are, rather than what we do — well that’s a little more scary, isn’t it? That might be a little too much for the kind, gentle, sensitive latte-sipping lunch crowd to fully get behind. But that is what I hear these 7th Century murderers saying, and that is what I see them doing, and I choose not to look away just because I do not much like what I see.

Some people will believe anything if they want to believe it hard enough. Which leads us to…

This report was released online, available for download, this past week after the mass media did their best to completely lie and misinform about the contents of the report. They did this under the assumption that the American public would believe their lies, since they probably would not even bother to read the report.

Well, here is your chance to prove the mass media wrong. Just go here to download and read the report:

In order to accommodate continuing public interest and to provide an accurate, definitive report, this online version is made available to improve efficient delivery of this material.

The five volumes of the document, linked below, documents the history of the Saddam regime.

The Institute for Defense Analyses produced the report under contract for the command as part of the broader Iraqi Perspectives Project.

The Iraqi Perspectives Project examines operational and strategic insights and lessons from the perspective of former senior Iraqi decision-makers through the analysis of primary source material such as interviews and captured regime documents.

The study’s authors completed the report after screening more than 600,000 captured documents including several hundred hours of audio and video files archived by U.S. Department of Defense.

As part of USJFCOM, JCOA studies strategic and operational lessons from recent and ongoing military operations in order to improve the joint force.

Click on the link I provided above to go to the United States Joint Forces Command website to download the volumes of the report.

Again, the mass media has been completely lying about the contents of this report. This is not suprising to anyone except the so-called “anti-war” and “peace” activists who swallow down the lies of the mass media every time. Well, except when the mass media was reporting the ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in 1998-1999, of course. But, why should we care about all the terrorism going on during the Sainted Clinton Administration. It’s all Boooooosh’s fault afterall.

Anyway, here are also a few great analyses of the report done by the gentlemen at Flopping Aces:

While the mass media reported that this report proved that there were no ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden/a Qaeda, here is the actual conclusion from the report:

“v. Conclusion
One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes.”

[btw, no emphasis added on that ’yes’. It’s emphasized in the report]

Read the entire report to find out what other lies the mass media has been pushing on you, while assuming you are just an ignorant, lazy idiot who will never read the report.

I believe an article was written on Monday of this week, March 10, which had a headline saying that the Pentagon was going to release a report this week that proved, without a doubt, that Saddam’s Iraq had absolutely no ties to al Qaida prior to 2003. Turns out (no suprise) that the article was completely and utterly WRONG.

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda’s second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. “Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.” According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq’s former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

[ … ]

Among the study’s other notable findings:

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden’s fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.

For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to “armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests.”

In the 1990s, Iraq’s military intelligence directorate trained and equipped “Sudanese fighters.”

In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered “financial and moral support” to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists.

There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as “under the wings of bin Laden.” Although the organization “is an offshoot of bin Laden,” the fact that it has a different name “can be a way of camouflaging the organization.” The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to “priorities previously established.”

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: “Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda — as long as that organization’s near-term goals supported Saddam’s long-term vision.” [ … ]

The hilarious thing about this is that the Left has been crowing about the article written on Monday about this report, stating that the report proves that “BUSH LIED! Saddam had no ties to al Qaida!!!” When, in fact, this report proves just the opposite. But, now the Left is on record saying that this report is credible. Heheh Idiots.

Be sure to read the whole thing and I’ll link to other good posts on this later.

I wrote this back in 2005, but I did not have a blog back then. So I’m just posting it now.

*****

Okay, so I read on Captain’s Quarters that the AP has a story telling about one of the London terrorist bombers who was pissed off about the War in Iraq and that, along with his obsession with Islam and reading the Koran, led him to blow himself up in the London subway system.

The media just laps this up, because they want to blame everything on President Bush and the War on Terror. However, did anyone ever stop and think about the differences between Pre-2003 Iraq and Post-2003 Iraq?

Pre-2003 Iraq, Saddam was mass murdering Muslims (men, women and children) in his own country. He was also torturing Muslims in his own country for disagreeing with his dictatorship. Yet, did we hear of anyone getting so pissed off about this and deciding to attack Iraq after converting to Islam?

Now we get to post-2003 Iraq and the Coalition forces have liberated millions of innocent Muslims, given them the freedom to form their own government, allowed women and children to go to school and get jobs and have set Iraq on the path to a healthy democracy. Yet, this is a bad thing?

So we have mass murder of Muslims by Saddam: GOOD. Liberating Muslims by America and the Coalition: BAD.

2 + 2 = 4, yet the media can’t figure this out. They just continue on their anti-America, anti-War on Terror, pro-Terrorist mantras.

All other obvious facts aside, someone should ask the Media and the Democrats why terrorists were not suicide bombing Saddam’s Iraq all the years he was mass murdering Muslims and putting them in mass graves all around Iraq as well as torturing Muslims in his torture chambers. I would like to hear the spin they try to put on that, especially since this was mainly happening during the 1990s (Clinton Administration).

Also, the media has a bit of amnesia as it was the African nation of Mogadishu, Somalia (“Blackhawk Down” or Battle of the Black Sea) which was one of the starting points of this War on Terror. Terrorist warlords had control of Somalia. Muhammed Farah Aidid was in control of the capital, Mogadishu. He was controlling the humanitarian aid (UN led “Operation Provide Relief”) being sent there and taking all the food for himself and starving the people of Somalia. 300,000 starved to death. When the world heard about this, they didn’t hear about warlords and terrorist controlled governments (just like no one hears about that concerning Africa even today, 12 years later), they just saw pictures of starving people and children, so the UN and America send aid (Operation Restore Hope). Well, the warlords waited patiently until the American troops left and then declared war on the remaining UN “peacekeepers”. They then massacred about 2 dozen Pakistani soldiers.

Upon hearing about how well the “peacekeeping” mission was going, President Bill Clinton decided to send US Special Forces in to find Muhammed Farah Aidid and take him out. US Army Task Force Rangers, Delta Force and 160th SOAR (“Nightstalkers”) teams were sent in. Clinton expected the mission to take 3 weeks. 6 weeks later they still had not been able to find and capture Aidid.

Eventually, the now infamous “Blackhawk Down” mission occurred. The mission itself was successful. They found and captured a couple of Aidid’s top aides. Only problem was, during the extraction, 2 Blackhawk Helicoptors were shot down. The Special Forces now had to divide their attention between the extraction and 2 different Blackhawk crash sites to try to save the wounded and retrieve the dead. (“No one gets left behind!” God Bless the military for caring for and respecting their brave men and women this way.) There were only about 50 or so Special Forces troops against hundreds of armed Somalis. As it turned out, we have found out that these Somalis and Aidid were being supported by bin Laden.

After the Somalis killed many of our Special Forces soldiers, including the now infamous pictures of the soldiers’ mangled and torn apart bodies, Clinton pulled the Special Forces team out. Without ever having completed their mission of capturing Aidid. It was that pullout that led bin Laden to label America a “paper tiger” and led him to believe that Americans were not willing to deal with seeing their soldiers get killed, especially in such a gruesome manner.

Lost in all of this is the fact that America went into Somalia to HELP MUSLIMS. Meanwhile terrorist warlords starved 300,000 Muslims to death. Where was the outrage from Islamic converts to that? Why didn’t Islamic terrorists bomb Somalia at the murder of 300,000 Muslims?

The hypocrisy is outrageous, yet the media ignores it and continues on with their mantra that the Iraq War causes terrorism. This is simply atrocious. Anyone with just the basic facts of history knows that this is not true. And knowing history, it is clearly obvious that the media is complicit with the terrorists in this War on Terror. The Democrats and liberals and leftists as well. As such, they are all traitors not just to America, but the entire world, as terrorism is not just aimed at America, but the entire civilized world that does not agree with radical Islam.

Instead of providing basic facts as I have provided here, the media continues to spout propaganda. Simply appalling. The blogosphere needs to continue to get out the facts and to educate people about history, because we know the media will not do it and we know the liberals are controlling the educational system and are rewriting history, so our children will not be learning it in schools or universities. We are in a fight for our survival and the enemy is much more than just radical Islam. It is the media. It is leftists and liberals. It is Democrats. We need to take the fight to all of them.

ABOUT

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?”

Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” — Professor John Keating, Dead Poets Society (1989)

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“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”
———- ———- ———-“A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefswhich must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.”

—Ronald Reagan 1975

“Don’t give up your ideals, don’t compromise, don’t turn to expediency — and don’t, for heaven’s sake, having seen the inner workings of the watch — don’t get cynical.”

—Ronald Reagan, 1976
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———- ———- ———-Rorschach’s Journal. November 12th, 1985: Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout “Save us!”… and I’ll whisper “no.”
———- ———- ———-“You see, Doctor, God didn’t kill that little girl. Fate didn’t butcher her and destiny didn’t feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night, He didn’t seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.“
———- ———- ———-“Men get arrested. Dogs get put down.”
———- ———- ———-“And I am reminded, on this holy day, of the sad story of Kitty Genovese. As you all may remember, a long time ago, almost thirty years ago, this poor soul cried out for help time and time again, but no person answered her calls. Though many saw, no one so much as called the police. They all just watched as Kitty was being stabbed to death in broad daylight. They watched as her assailant walked away. Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. —Monsignor, Boondock Saints (1999)
———- ———- ———-“Never shall innocent blood be shed, yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river. The Three shall spread their blackened wings and be the vengeful striking hammer of God.” —Il Duce, Boondock Saints (1999)
———- ———- ———-“Now you will receive us. We do not ask for your poor, or your hungry. We do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath we shall hunt them down. Each day, we will spill their blood till it rains down from the skies. Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace. These are not polite suggestions, these are codes of behavior and those of you that ignore them will pay the dearest cost. There are varying degrees of evil, we urge you lesser forms of filth not to push the bounds and cross over, into true corruption, into our domain. For if you do, one day you will look behind you and you will see we three. And on that day, you will reap it. And we will send you to whatever god you wish. And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be. In nomine Patri. Et Fili. Spiritus Sancti.” —Boondock Saints (1999)
———- ———- ———-Hometown: CHICAGO!Current City: Farmington Hills, Michigan
Brother Rice HS (Chicago, IL) 1994
Purdue University Graduate (BSME 1999)
Vehicle Packaging Team Lead Engineer
Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks Fan